3 Steps for getting started with SEO

If you’ve been anywhere around business in the last decade, there’s an approximately 100% chance that you’ve come across the term “SEO” at some point, and probably know that it refers to Search Engine Optimisation — the art of attempting to boost a website’s rankings on search engines, particularly Google.

SEO can be an arcane and complicated subject to explore, with plenty of off-the-wall jargon and nuanced approaches to trying to get the best possible response from Google’s algorithm.

If you’re the owner of a small business, it can be well worth the effort of hiring SEO professionals such as https://herdl.com/seo-ashby to help you out. But it’s also important that you understand some of the basics of SEO yourself.

Here are a few things you need to do to get started with SEO as a small business owner.

Identify your keywords

One of the fundamental components of SEO is keywords, those terms that you want to rank well for on Google. Before you can do anything meaningful in the way of improving your site’s SEO, you need to identify the keywords you’ll be targeting.

Keep in mind, however, that the keywords you use shouldn’t by any means just be things that you grab out of the air on a whim. Your keywords need to be thoroughly considered and researched.

The best way to identify keywords that work for you is to use the Google Adwords Keyword Planner tool, enter different keywords related to your industry, and see how many searches they received over the last year, and how competitive those keyword terms are.

If your business is graphic design, the keyword term “graphic designer” will likely be so hyper-competitive that you can’t hope to rank well, unless you’re a multinational giant. The fix for this is what’s known as long-tail keywords. “Graphic designer in my city” might land you right in the sweet spot. Going too overboard with a keyword term like “graphic designer in my city who specialises in cats and dogs and likes Clint Eastwood films”, however, will likely yield you zero searches even if you’re ranked number one.

Regularly put up quality content on your site

It’s often said in SEO circles that “content is king”, meaning that it’s not keyword spam that helps you to rank your website well, but the fact that those keywords are embedded in quality content.

Google has long been fighting a battle against underhanded SEO tactics, and the Google SEO algorithm seems to favour websites which produce original, grammatically correct, relevant written content.

For this purpose, work on your SEO by regularly putting up quality written content on your website.

Work on establishing quality links back to your website

Links are another fundamental component of the SEO equation, with the idea being that the more keyword-relevant links from trustworthy websites you have pointing to your own website, the more trustworthy your site will appear to Google, and the better it will rank.

Establishing quality backlinks to your site can be done in many different ways, with guest blogging typically being one of the easiest for a new entrepreneur.